


Shadow of the Divine

by manic_intent



Category: Persona 5
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, M/M, Phantom Thief!Akira, Shadow!Iwai, That AU where Iwai is a powerful Shadow, whom Akira meets in Mementos
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-24
Updated: 2019-06-24
Packaged: 2020-05-19 04:43:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,200
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19349728
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/manic_intent/pseuds/manic_intent
Summary: The Shadow laughed. He had a very human voice as well, husky and low. “You look lost to me. A dressed up lil’ kitty with a toy gun.” He had an unlit cigarette in his mouth, a strange affectation. It didn’t explain the smell.Akira blinked, unable to hide his surprise. In the overworld, his gun—and his friends’ weapons—were Airsoft replicas, obviously plastic toys. Theylookedreal enough until you handled them though, which was why they worked in Mementos, where reality was malleable and just as easily shaped by belief as logic.“You think I can’t tell when somethin’ like that is fake?” The Shadow seemed more amused than aggressive. “Tell you what, kid. I’ll give you a free pass this time. Pick up your friends and go.”





	Shadow of the Divine

**Author's Note:**

> For Amanda, who asked for a Persona 5 story. 
> 
> Ahhh it’s been a while. I loved this game, but tbh I have nfi how to even begin to explain it to someone who has never played Persona 5. It’s such a weird series. For example, you pretty much grind XP by going around a nightmare version of the Japanese subway system in a bus that your cat can turn into. Not even the main trailers bothered to explain how the game works, but uh, here: 
> 
> Persona 5 trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wPqSkzNNPIg  
> Iwai Munehisa and Main Character (Akira): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HgwDRUACWus
> 
> In this AU, instead of being the ex-yakuza boss of an airsoft shop, Iwai is a very powerful Shadow. Akira and friends are college-aged instead of high schoolers.

“This doesn’t look right,” Akira said as Makoto turned the Mona-Bus around the corner. 

The tunnel they had been in within Mementos had looked like a merging of the Tokyo subway system with Hell—the purplish fleshy walls fibrous with blood vessels, the rail tracks laid out of bone. The new section they’d turned into should have looked the same—the so-called collective unconscious of Tokyo made flesh was usually surprisingly structured. Instead of more bone tracks and pulsing walls, however, they looked out onto a section of Tokyo. An asphalt road was walled in by narrow buildings, adorned with neon signage. There was even a pair of vending machines wedged in an alley. 

“Is it some sort of shortcut to the overworld?” Haru asked from the back seat. 

Heiress to a large fortune and her family’s company, some days Akira wasn’t even sure why Haru/Noir made the time to do what they did. Being a Phantom Thief. Answering desperate requests from the public, playing dress-up in armour and masks. Using code-names in the Metaverse to avoid detection. When Akira had first stumbled on the Metaverse and freed Morgana/Mona from it, he’d envisaged attracting more people like Makoto/Queen—a police cadet with a strong sense of justice. The people he’d gathered instead had been a hodgepodge of personalities, all different. All necessary. 

“No. Look up,” Makoto said, tense. Where there should have been a sky, there was instead a dense network of metal cabling woven through with reddish tendons, strung with white and red lanterns. 

“Head in,” Akira said. At Makoto’s startled glance, he smiled sharply under his Joker’s mask. “Aren’t you curious? This is something completely new.” 

“I guess we should check it out,” Haru said, pressing her face against the glass window of the little black van for a better look. “We can always run away if we can’t handle it.” 

“This feels like a bad idea,” said Morgana, but the van obligingly trundled forward at Makoto’s urging. As they cleared the boundary, Makoto stifled a gasp. The sour metallic stench that permeated Mementos was gone, replaced by an ashy odour of cigarettes. Haru coughed, swiping her hand before her nose. 

Akira checked the rearview mirror. The opening to Mementos was still there. “Keep going,” he told Makoto.

“I’m trying. Mona?” Makoto asked.

“I can’t move any further,” Morgana sounded a little panicky. “There’s an invisible wall. Like the station intervals?” 

“Right.” Akira opened the passenger door. 

Makoto made a grab for Akira’s shoulder. “Joker, wait—”

Akira blinked. He stood in the centre of the street, which was wet from sleeting rain. None of it touched him, the droplets falling through him to splash onto the road. The neon signs were no longer legible, each of them an intricate welter of characters mashed together into blots. The edges of the buildings looked indistinct, wavering from concrete to wood to steel, the ground from asphalt to dirt to grass. He stood in a confluence of multiple Tokyos, from multiple eras, crushed together into a street. He stood in a complete memory of the overworld. 

Turning around, Akira was unsurprised to find that the Mona-bus and the others were missing, as was the way out. The street stretched endlessly before and behind him. Akira touched his face. His mask was still there—he was definitely still within Mementos. “Mona?” Akira called. “Queen? Noir?” 

“You lost, boy?” 

Akira spun around, drawing his pistol from his hip. The Shadow studied him with open amusement, floating above the ground with his hands folded behind his back. His face was in shadow under his cap, but it looked uncomfortably human, with human-shaped ears. Greying sideburns, buzzed short. Black and ivory horns swept out from behind his ears like dragon antlers, iridescent scales flecking his throat. A long black and green coat flared around him like jagged wings, over a pair of black jeans tucked into combat boots. His torso was bare, thick with hyperrealistic ‘tattoos’ that shifted and moved. Here a tiger, there a fish, its scales coiling wetly over the Shadow’s collarbone. He was beautiful.

“I’m not. Are you?” Akira had long learned in negotiations not to admit weaknesses. 

The Shadow laughed. He had a very human voice as well, husky and low. “You look lost to me. A dressed up lil’ kitty with a toy gun.” He had an unlit cigarette in his mouth, a strange affectation. It didn’t explain the smell.

Akira blinked, unable to hide his surprise. In the overworld, his gun—and his friends’ weapons—were Airsoft replicas, obviously plastic toys. They _looked_ real enough until you handled them though, which was why they worked in Mementos, where reality was malleable and just as easily shaped by belief as logic. 

“You think I can’t tell when somethin’ like that is fake?” The Shadow seemed more amused than aggressive. “Tell you what, kid. I’ll give you a free pass this time. Pick up your friends and go.” 

“I’m not a kid,” Akira said, narrowing his eyes. “Are you blind, old man? Pay attention.” 

The Shadow’s smile faded. “Careful. I’ve been here for a while. Those toy guns of yours won’t work on me, I know what they are.” 

“A while? How long?” The Shadow’s clothes looked modern, another odd deviation from the Shadows Akira had met so far. 

“You normally this fuckin’ chatty with Shadows?” 

“Shadows aren’t usually chatty at all. Not on a first meeting.” Akira folded his hands into his pockets. “Your kind usually attack.” 

“I don’t think you’ve met anythin’ out there like me, kid,” the Shadow said. He looked amused again. 

“Like what?” 

“You know what Shadows are?” 

Akira tried not to scowl. “Suppressed darker human thoughts given physical form in Mementos. What about it?” 

“The ones out there, they’re mostly from normal people. Fuckin’ salarymen and office ladies, school teachers, shop owners. Still dangerous as hell.”

“You’re trying to tell me that you’re something different,” Akira said, slowly looking the Shadow up and down. “It’s obvious what you are, by the way. Hardly a mystery.” 

“Oh?” The Shadow tucked his thumbs into the hem of his pants. “And what’s that, boy?” 

“I’ll make a guess,” Akira offered, “and in return, you tell me your name.” 

“Hah! Nice try. Isn’t this what you humans call a negotiation? You get my name and I have to work for you?” 

“You still have to like me first,” Akira said, with a sharp grin, “though, in your case, I think we’ve already got that covered. Isn’t that right, Mr Yakuza Shadow?” 

The Shadow threw back his head and laughed. Under his cap, he was more handsome than Akira imagined—strong-jawed, dark-eyed. “Maybe you’re right on both counts, kid,” the Shadow said, “but not exactly. Fair’s fair. I’ll give you half of my name. ‘Iwai’.” 

“Iwai,” Akira repeated, tasting the name on his lips. 

Iwai smiled. There was something predatory in his grin, a cat watching his prey. “Now run along,” he said. The ground shivered beneath Akira, the road extending like a tensile length, a tongue, curling and trying to shake away Akira. 

Akira fell to his knees, trying to steady himself. “Wait!” Akira called, but he tumbled away, wrenched off his feet. He rolled with the fall instinctively and yelped as he landed hard against a familiar glass window. The Mona-bus was on its flank, everyone tumbled against their seatbelts. 

“What happened?” Makoto asked as Morgana righted his van-form. “Everyone all right?” 

“Look.” Haru pointed. Where the entrance to the strange section of Mementos had been was now a gold and black kekkai, a shimmering barrier strung with heavy chains. “I think we were expelled by something. Did anyone see anything?”

“No. Just the road, then we were kicked out,” Makoto said. 

“There’s something strong in there,” Morgana said, reversing to get a better look at the kekkai. “A Shadow, I think.” 

“Why didn’t it just attack?” Haru asked. She looked at Akira. “Akira? You’re being very quiet.” 

“Just disoriented,” Akira lied. He pretended to straighten his mask. “Let’s keep going. I have to get back soon to help out in the cafe.”

#

“Do you know anything about a Shadow called Iwai?” Akira asked when he next popped by the Velvet Room.

“Iwai… Hrm… hrm!” Igor pulled out a tome and flipped through it for a while. He slammed it shut. “No.” The master of the Velvet Room sank into his high-backed chair, steepling his gloved hands under his beaked nose. Perched as he was behind his desk, he again reminded Akira unkindly of a particularly psychotic version of the Penguin. 

“That’s it?” Akira said, disappointed. 

“Disrespectful,” Caroline snapped. The blonde jailer-twin snapped her baton against the bars of Akira’s ‘cell’. Akira tried not to laugh. The Velvet Room and its affectations tended to amuse him now rather than frighten him. Even though he always entered this pocket of the Metaverse in chains and in a prisoner’s stripes. 

“Hai, hai,” Akira said. He started to ask Justine, the other jailer-twin, about available fusions and gasped. Iwai was lounging in one of the cells behind Igor, the black edges of his coat ebbing into deep shadow. He smiled lazily and tipped his hat at Akira. 

“No wonder you felt special. You’re one of his experiments,” Iwai said. He pushed against the cell door and it unlocked with a click. Akira braced himself for a fight as Justine and Caroline bristled, but at some hidden signal from Igor they stood down. Iwai floated over to the side of Igor’s desk and bent, looking him over. “You look different, old friend.” 

“Go away,” Igor told him, “or I’ll tell the boy your true name.” 

“Always with the threats. Some friend you are.” Iwai straightened up. His feet landed gracefully on the ground and he sauntered over to Akira’s cell. “You’re pretty under that mask.” 

Akira forced himself to smirk. He’d thought Igor the master of his pocket of the Metaverse—he’d never known Shadows able to traverse it like this. “Thank you. Why not stay a little longer? I’d love to know your true name.” 

“You would.” Iwai’s hand shot through the bars, catching Akira by his chin before he could jerk back. His fingers were surprisingly warm. “Wouldn’t it be more fun if I told it to you myself?” He pressed his thumb to Akira’s lips. Akira grabbed his wrist and elbow and hauled Iwai toward him with all his weight. Iwai yelped as he smacked against the bars of Akira’s cell, and went still as Akira twisted his arm against the bars and grabbed hold of one of his horns, forcing his cheek into the steel. 

“If you want me as a master, just say so, Iwai- _san_ ,” Akira whispered against Iwai’s ear. He licked the scales on Iwai’s throat. They were dry and cool, making his tongue tingle. Iwai shivered, then jerked free as Caroline slapped her baton against the bars. 

“Hey! No lewd behaviour allowed in here,” Caroline said. She glowered at Akira. 

“Sorry, sorry,” Akira said, stepping back with his hands held playfully in the air. Iwai shot him an unreadable stare and pulled down his hat, vanishing into the air. 

“Check the wards,” Igor told Justine, who nodded and walked briskly out of sight. 

“You’ve met him before?” Akira asked, curious. “We ran into him in a strange section of Mementos.” 

“He’s everywhere. A parasite of the Metaverse, just like how the people he was made from are parasites of the overworld.” Igor tapped his fingertips together. “Do you want his full name?” 

“No,” Akira said, after a moment’s thought. “I think he wants to tell me that himself. Why spoil the fun?”

#

The entrance to Iwai’s section was now a blank wall, as though it had never been there. Morgana concluded that it was just a trick of Mementos. They were busy anyway, hunting down first a corrupt politician, then a serial con-man. The Phantom Thief requests were coming in thick and fast, despite Mishima’s various attempts to exert quality control.

“Nothing that the police can’t resolve,” Makoto reiterated their rule as they sat down in the tiny office they managed to rent with the proceeds from the Treasures they sometimes picked up in Palaces and Mementos. 

“Hai, hai, hai,” Mishima said, shrinking behind his old laptop. “But. You know.”

“Know what?” Ryuji asked. Ryuji/Skull was a professional soccer player, one who had to squeeze in time between his busy practice schedule to even make it for their meet-ups. He couldn’t always be relied on for Palaces, but Akira appreciated the support. 

“It could be maybe… more sustainable… if we took on more work that offered payment…” Mishima’s words faded into a mumble under Makoto’s and Ann’s combined glare. 

“We’re not mercenaries,” Makoto said. 

“We’re not in this for the money,” Ann agreed. Not that she needed the money. Ann/Panther was a model-actress, extremely busy whenever she had work and extremely available when she was between gigs. 

“I have money if we need it,” Haru piped in. 

Wedged in a corner of the office and sketching into a book, Yusuke/Fox said distractedly, “Money is ugly and crass.” 

“You’d think that, Mr Professional Artist,” Futaba said. She was wedged next to Mishima, peering at his screen. Where Mishima ran tech support for their site and request system in the overworld, Futaba/Oracle often ran support in the Metaverse—when she had the time between the demands of her tech startup.

“It might be, but it would also help us get a better office, better equipment, better… better art supplies,” Mishima said, desperate for an ally. He looked pleadingly at Akira, who had his legs propped up on the table and his laptop on his belly, working through his assignment. “Akira. Back me up here.”

“Hmm? I wasn’t listening,” Akira said. He understood, though. Some days they took a real bruising in Mementos. Once, they’d even had to negotiate the release of Ryuji when he’d been taken hostage. Thankfully Ann had managed to sweet-talk the Shadow down into a bargain. 

Morgana slapped his paw on Akira’s knee. “We do need more money. It’ll be nice not to live in a glorified closet. So cold in winter! So hot in summer! And have sushi every day. But. We will not take money. Not from people who need help, and not from Haru.” 

“Don’t be stubborn,” Haru said, with a quick grin. “Just the interest from my personal bank account would cover the rental from this place and then some. Batman funds his crimefighting on the side. Why not me?” 

“When you put it that way,” Ryuji said. 

Makoto smacked him on the arm. “No. We’re not here to be leeches. If there’s a way for the Phantom Thieves to become financially sustainable, that’s good. But there’s no point doing what we do if we profit off the misery of strangers.” 

The rest of the meeting petered off. They narrowed down prospects from Mishima’s longlist and set him to do the research. The others left gradually, hauled away by their lives. As Akira wandered out of the office onto the street, Makoto touched his arm. “Ramen?” she asked. 

“Sure.” Akira followed her down a block until they could tuck themselves into a small diner down an alley, one where the owner recognised and liked them. Given how he always set out a small tray of fresh sashimi for Morgana, Akira suspected that the owner either suspected who they were or really, really liked cats. 

“So,” Makoto said as they tucked into steaming bowls of slippery noodles and silky soup, “how have you been?”

“Fine,” Akira said. 

“Life at Tōdai is just ‘fine’?” Makoto speared one of the pieces of chashu in her bowl. 

“It’s nothing different.” 

“Still working on becoming a politician?” Makoto smiled, amused. 

“I’m going to intern with Yoshida-san during the next break.” He’d have to scale back on Phantom Thief activities then, maybe, but it wasn’t like the rest of the team weren’t capable of doing a Prison run by themselves. “How’s the cadet life?”

“Fine. I should be more tired than I am, juggling that and this after hours. What we do is important, though. I can see that.”

“Hey, you don’t need to justify it to us if you need some time out now and then,” Akira said gently. “You’re the only one of us with a real job.” He winked. 

Makoto giggled. “That is not a nice thing to say.” Morgana nodded vigorously. She sobered up. “I wanted to talk to you about the strange room. The one that looked like Tokyo.”

“What about it?” Akira asked, perhaps too casually. Makoto frowned at him. 

“I know you’re hiding something. Did you see something that the rest of us didn’t?” 

“…Maybe,” Akira said, “but it isn’t important.” 

“I know a lie when I see one,” Makoto said. She patted Akira lightly on the shoulder. “Whatever it is, you can talk to me about it if you need to.” Morgana looked between them, worried, but bent back to his sushi when Akira just started to eat. He was silent all the way home, up until Akira let him out onto the small flat that he rented above Cafe Leblanc. 

“Neh, Akira,” Morgana said, shaking himself out, “are you sure it wasn’t important? What you saw in Mementos.” 

“I can handle it.”

“That’s not the same.” Morgana’s ears drooped. “Don’t trust anything you meet in the Metaverse.”

“I trusted you, didn’t I? I found you in a cell, at that.” 

Morgana bristled, tail fluffing up. “What! That isn’t the same!”

“Hai, hai.” Akira didn’t need the lecture. He could take care of himself—and besides, he already knew what he needed to do next.

#

The entrance down to Mementos looked the same in the dead of night as it did in the late afternoon whenever Akira came here with the others. Alone, the corrupted escalators leading down into the Path of Qimranut looked more intimidating than usual. Akira was careful to show no fear, his gloved hands pushed into the pockets of his coat.

As he walked toward the escalators, Iwai said, “You’re either very brave or very stupid.” 

Akira behind him. Iwai was perched on the turnstile with his legs crossed, expressionless. “Iwai-san,” Akira said and bowed with a playful flourish. “How nice to see you here.” 

“Not gonna say that you were expectin’ me?” 

“Was I?” Akira asked with arch innocence. Morgana had once said that Shadows could ‘sense’ any intrusion into Mementos by outsiders. With Iwai’s ability to appear at any part of the Metaverse, Akira _had_ been hoping that Iwai would show up. 

“Little brat,” Iwai said, though he sounded amused. “Well, whaddya want?” 

“The second half of your name would be nice.” Akira sauntered over. Iwai straightened up as Akira got close, but made no move to push him away as Akira stroked his hands curiously up his thighs. Iwai felt warm under his palms, reassuringly solid. 

“More human than you thought?” Iwai said. His coat fluttered against the turnstiles, brushing curiously against Akira. 

“Is that meant to be disappointing?”

“How should I know? Maybe you snuck out here to have some fun with one of your pets. I’ve seen everythin’.” 

“If you have, then you know I haven’t done that before.” Akira had never thought of Arsene—or any of his Personas—that way. “You’d know they’re not my pets.” 

“They obey you. Come and go like dogs. Look like pets to me,” Iwai said. 

“You aren’t very friendly today,” Akira said with a little pout. “Don’t you like me anymore?”

“That act would be cuter from a woman.” Iwai’s gaze flicked down to Akira’s hands but made no move to encourage or stop him. 

“So you do think I’m cute.” Akira tipped up Iwai’s cap. When Iwai still didn’t move, Akira took it off carefully. 

Maybe his surprise showed. Iwai chuckled. “What, y’think it’s glued to my head?” 

“Clothes work strangely in the Metaverse.” Akira put the cap on his own head and grinned slyly as Iwai let out a snort. 

“Playin’ with fire, kid.” 

“I’ve told you, I’m not a child. Don’t call me ‘kid’.”

“What should I call you then?” Iwai asked as Akira stroked gloved fingers up over his abs. Damn. That felt solid as well. Akira didn’t bother hiding his admiration.

“‘Joker’,” Akira said.

“That can’t be your real name unless your parents hated you.” 

“It’s the name you get until you tell me yours.” Akira leaned in. When Iwai merely huffed, Akira kissed him lightly on the lips. Iwai was warm there too, and didn’t taste ashy like Akira feared. He didn’t taste like anything that Akira could place, only that again his tongue tingled, making him want more, making him light-headed. Iwai didn’t push him away, but he didn’t kiss Akira back either.

This wasn’t going the way Akira had hoped. “Is something wrong?” Akira asked, concerned. 

“Think you don’t get what I am,” Iwai said. He stroked his knuckles against Akira’s cheek, teasing against the edges of his mask. 

“I’ve already guessed it, haven’t I? You’re a conglomerate shadow. Not just of the yakuza. You’re of the people who came before. From the Edo period, the tekiya, the bakuto. You were here before Tokyo was built. As the years went by,” Akira said, tickling his gloved fingers over the tiger that prowled under Iwai’s skin, “you became something more than what you were. Not entirely evil—” Akira tapped one of Iwai’s graceful horns, “—but not entirely good. Human. That’s why you look and feel so human.” 

Iwai scoffed. “I’m not human, boy.” 

“Only where it doesn’t count.” Akira kissed Iwai again, and this time Iwai kissed him back, licking into his mouth. Now Akira understood what he tasted as he kissed, why he felt so buzzed as he breathed Iwai in. It was raw power that he touched, folded under Iwai’s human-shaped skin. It was proof of the divine.

Iwai caught Akira’s wrist as he reached for Iwai’s pants. “You sure you want to do that?” 

Akira scowled, rubbing his arousal pointedly against Iwai’s thigh. “No, I stole out here in the middle of the night by myself so that I could have some polite conversation.” 

Iwai chuckled. “Smartass.” He flicked his cigarette away into thin air and got off the turnstile, curling an arm around Akira’s waist. The world flickered and reformed into a grassy field, bisected by a silver stream. A graceful bridge forded it in the distance in a gentle arch, bookended by dense forests that shivered and faded and solidified as Akira stared. The stream became a concrete-lined canal, the field levelling into highways. Iwai muttered something Akira couldn’t catch and the overlapping world coalesced into the field, the silver stream. 

“You don’t like what you’ve become,” Akira said. He kissed the carp as it swept against the skin of Iwai’s arm in a slow loop. 

“There’s no point likin’ or dislikin’ it. It is what it is.” Iwai pressed a playful kiss against Akira’s mask. “This stays on?” 

“It’ll stay on,” Akira said, because despite Morgana’s occasional opinion he wasn’t a fool. 

If kissing him through the mask made Iwai uncomfortable he didn’t show it. He bent Akira against him with uncanny strength, demanding now where he’d only been curious before, lowering them down onto the grass. The cap rolled away. The grass was soft but didn’t smell of soil and vegetation as a real field would. Perhaps scent was the easiest thing to forget for the scraps of memory-desire-sensation that had built into Iwai over the centuries, built from people that the world, in turn, preferred forgotten. 

“How far d’you want this to go?” Iwai asked. His breath was hot against Akira’s cheek, and he kept his weight off Akira by leaning up on his elbows. Akira pulled Iwai’s coat off, or tried to—it resisted his touch, its shape distorting. It was a coat and then it was two sets of black wings, spiked like a dragon’s and tattered at the edges. It was a coat again, leathery and warm to the touch. 

“Please tell me that this comes off,” Akira said, tugging at Iwai’s pants. There was a promising bulge tenting the front.

He smirked. “If you ask nicely, maybe it does.” 

“But Iwai-san, don’t you want me to suck your cock?” Akira asked innocently and laughed as Iwai growled and sat up, hauling Akira into his lap for a kiss. 

Akira ran his hands greedily over the muscular body he was pressed against, chasing the tiger, the carp, the kirin, the snake. Most ignored him. The dragon he could touch directly, tracing the arch of Iwai’s antlers, the scales on his throat. The baku he chased on Iwai’s tongue, the devourer of dreams and nightmares. Akira kissed his way down, baku to dragon to carp, kirin to phoenix to snake. The tiger arched against Akira’s mouth like a cat greeting a favoured servant. He felt its purr rumble through Iwai’s moan as Akira kissed down over Iwai’s belly, pulling down his pants and underwear both. 

The cock was surprisingly. Well. _Human_. Akira looked up as Iwai started to laugh. “Wanted somethin’ else, eh?” Iwai said, leaning back on his palms. 

“It changes?” Akira licked the tip experimentally. Iwai’s cock didn’t taste human—none of him did—but the weight and warmth weren’t unusual. 

“Humans,” Iwai said, which wasn’t exactly a ‘no’. “Go on then.” 

“Here you can shape reality in any way that you want, can’t you?” Akira asked, teasingly stroking the flesh in his grip. 

“In some ways. Why?” 

“I think it’d be a shame if this had to be constrained by the rules of another world,” Akira said and kissed the tip of Iwai’s cock playfully. 

Iwai took in a slow breath. Between one heartbeat and the next, it looked as though his body was fragmenting, no longer constrained into the vessel of a single human form—what looked down at Akira was something closer to a God, a seething compact of power and purpose. Akira blinked. The impression faded. Iwai leaned back onto his elbows with a challenging smirk. “Make it worth my time and we’ll see,” he said. 

Akira took Iwai tentatively into his mouth. He couldn’t usually fit very much within himself before he hit his gag reflex, something he’d yet had to desensitise himself to. Here, he could somehow keep going. Take all of Iwai in, getting his throat stretched out without choking. Iwai moaned, his rumble of pleasure shaking the ground beneath Akira’s knees, the air against his back. Akira pleased the shadow of the divine with his mouth and demanded to be pleased in turn. Iwai didn’t disappoint. With reality folded in any way that Iwai liked, Iwai could breach Akira’s body with only pleasure to see them through, fold Akira in half to have him without pain to ground him. He could take Akira as the world settled and resettled around them, fractured against history. Akira scratched weals over Iwai’s chest, clenched his fingers tightly over his horns. He devoured all that Iwai was willing to give and demanded more. 

More, even as they lay sated against each other, legs tangled. “Aren’t you going to tell me your name?” Akira asked. He tickled his fingertips playfully over Iwai’s chest. 

“You already have a Persona wedged right in there.” Iwai poked the spot over Akira’s heart. “You wear his mask. You don’t need mine.” 

“I don’t need you. I want you. Not as a pet, not as a servant. Something more.” 

“A lover?” Iwai asked, openly sceptical. 

“Something new,” Akira said, stroking his cheek. “Why constrain something like that by the rules of another world?” 

Iwai stared at him for a while, and then, as Akira hoped, he began to laugh. “You’re somethin’ else, kid.” Iwai kissed Akira on the head. “Munehisa,” he murmured. “Iwai Munehisa.”

#

“Whoah!” Morgana flinched to the side as Iwai answered Akira’s call, hovering protectively behind him with his long coat curling in the air. “New Persona? Looks different.”

“No weapons?” Makoto asked, looking Iwai over as Iwai rolled his eyes. 

“I don’t know how you get used to the talking cat,” Iwai told Akira, with a sidelong glance at Morgana. “It’s not that cute in either form.” 

“Ahh? It talks?” Morgana yelped. 

“Shouldn’t that be my line?” Iwai scowled at him. 

Haru pointedly cleared her throat, pointing at the Shadow that was in their way. There was a man at its core, standing hunched with his hands curled into claws. A serial molester on the trains. The Shadow that burned outward from him was… well. Akira was going to need brain bleach after this. 

“You kids even need me for this?” Iwai complained. 

“Don’t be lazy,” Akira said. He made a rude gesture at the Shadow, who hunched down and struck, lunging toward Akira with his clawed arms outstretched. 

“Look out!” Makoto yelled. 

Iwai swept in front of Akira, grabbing the Shadow by the wrist. He drew a dagger out of nowhere and plunged it into the Shadow’s chest, twisting sharply. The Shadow staggered back. Usually, a single stab wouldn’t do much damage to corruption this deep. With a dagger made of the same reality that Iwai could shape though, the wound fractured outward, the fault lines stretching further and further until the Shadow shattered into dust. 

Akira poked at the dust with his foot. “You could have left us something to loot,” he told Iwai. 

“I save your ass and you complain,” Iwai shot back. “ _Humans_.” 

“Um, okay.” Morgana was also goggling at the dust. “I guess. We move on to the next request. We. _Joker, what even is this Persona?_ Is it even a Persona?” 

“Hey, hey. No need to screech. Noisy cat,” Iwai grumbled. 

“Just a new friend I met recently,” Akira said as glibly as he could. 

It didn’t fool Makoto. She gave Iwai a professional once over. “Friend, hm? Looks like yakuza to me.” 

“Aaand a cop. Great. That’s great,” Iwai said, giving Makoto a sour look. “Leave these losers at the entrance. We can handle Mementos ourself.” 

Haru giggled. “Your new Persona is really funny, Joker.” 

“We’re not doing that. At least, not until you learn how to kill something without completely disintegrating its Treasure,” Akira said. Iwai let out a loud snort and folded his arms. “On to the next request?” Akira asked Morgana. 

“Seriously? We’re just going to move on?” Morgana pointed at Iwai. “Aren’t you going to explain _that_?” 

“All right. He’s sort of my boyfriend,” Akira said, with an entirely straight face. 

Morgana gawked. Makoto’s hand went to her mouth, while Haru looked between Iwai and Akira. “Don’t call me again unless it’s an emergency. This is your problem,” Iwai told Akira. He vanished.

“Any questions?” Akira asked, still completely deadpan. 

“…Maybe we should just move on,” Makoto said diplomatically. 

“It doesn’t really look like any of our business,” Haru agreed.

Morgana dismissed his Persona and transformed into his bus form. “That’s it? No more questions? You people. We’re all going to die.”

**Author's Note:**

> twitter: @manic_intent  
> about my writing etc: manic-intent.tumblr.com  
> 


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